For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the last-minute deal concluded yesterday to put off elections and bring the Kadima Party into his coalition is another instance of his crafty strategy producing a heads, I win, tails, you lose moment in Israeli politics. Though the scenario in which he went to the polls in September to get a new and larger mandate from the people would have put him in a very strong position, adding Kadima and its new leader Shaul Mofaz to the Cabinet serves him just as well. The 94-seat majority (out of 120 seats in the Knesset) that he will now have for the next year and a half with elections postponed until the originally scheduled date in October 2013 will be strong enough to withstand any possible challenge from both allies like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu Party and foes on the left.
Though most foreign observers will jump to the conclusion that the Tehran-born Mofaz will provide Netanyahu with the internal backing needed to attack Iranian nuclear targets sometime in the next year, most Israelis are thinking more about the possibility of the largest secular parties now being able to unite to deal with question of military service for the ultra-Orthodox. This ought to make clear to even the dimmest of American observers of the Middle East — especially those so-called “liberal Zionists” who harbor unrealistic ambitions to remake the Jewish state in the image of American Jewry —not only the strength of Netanyahu’s ascendancy but how little the left counts in Israeli politics anymore.
This will make Labor the main opposition party, a position it would likely have assumed after September elections anyway. But it does so in a position of tremendous weakness in which its voice will count for next to nothing. The new Yesh Atid Party led by former TV journalist Yair Lapid that would probably have stolen many of Kadima’s centrist voters will similarly have to wait to get its moment in the sun.
As for Mofaz, the move will set off speculation that his ultimate goal is to integrate what’s left of the party Ariel Sharon founded back into the Likud. Whether that happens or not, the new coalition reflects the basic consensus that has emerged in Israeli politics over the peace process. While there are some differences between Netanyahu, Mofaz and Lieberman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the four have much more in common on the question of dealing with the Palestinians than they differ. All support in principle a two-state solution and all understand that the only real obstacle to such a deal is the Palestinian refusal to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. The creation of the unity government in which the supposedly pro-peace Kadima (at least that’s what some Americans though while it was led by Tzipi Livni before Mofaz defeated her in a primary) joins the government should remind liberal American critics of Netanyahu just how far out of step they are with political reality in Israel.
Similarly, the current government is generally on the same page on the need to head off a nuclear Iran, giving Netanyahu the domestic backing he will need no matter what decision he ultimately makes on whether the country should strike on its own.
As for relations with the United States, while this development puts an end to the October surprise scenario in which a re-elected Netanyahu would have had two months to hit Iran while President Obama was still running for re-election, as I had already written, there wasn’t much chance that would happen. But with a unity government and the polls giving him overwhelming approval, Netanyahu has all the backing he needs to fend off any pressure from Washington in the next year and a half on either the Palestinian or the Iranian front. Liberal Zionists and Obama administration officials who have dreamed of Netanyahu’s defeat are just going to need to learn to live with him.
But, but, but . .there's a whiny American schmuck who says there's a crisis in Zionism . . .
Jonathan Tobin misinterpreted Israel opinion polls, as did many others. While the polls are mute now, given the emergence of a unity government, it is still important to understand the basic principle of absolute proportional representation in the Israeli Knesset. It is not the largest party that forms the government but the largest bloc of parties that does so. (If that was not the case, then Tzipi LIvni would have been prime minister of Israel, not Netanyahu.) n nWhile the polls were indeed forecasting a significant increase in Likud seats and a significant drop in Kadima seats, one was not coming at the expense of the other. In fact virtually all polls predicted a decline in the number of rightwing-religious bloc seats and an increase in center-leftwing seats, up to a point where the difference between the two blocs was 3-4 seats. This certainly did not guarantee the reelection of Netanyahu. n nThat is one reason why Netanyahu reconsidered early elections. The others were the Supreme Court's ruling that he must remove the Givat Ha-Ulpana settlers within 60 days (right in the middle of the election campaign) which would have angered his rightwing-religious supporters, and then there was Netanyahu's unwelcome reception at the Likud convention a couple of days ago, which at best could be described as an embarrassment for him and at worst a downright denunciation of his policies by the far righwing within Likud (not a small group). n nGiven such an atmosphere, it wasn't rocket science to figure out that it may not be such a good time for Bibi to call for elections. Enter Shaul Mofaz, for whom Kadima, under his leadership, was predicted to lose more than half of their seats, and the alliance between the two becomes a no-brainer.
Israeli political polling data are enormously unreliable and always underestimate support for the right. In any case, every single poll showed that 2/3 of the voters said Bibi was the best person to lead the next government. There is no question that Bibi would have won a working majority if the country had gone to the polls in September.
Poling data is the worst form of data available except for all others. As for Israeli polls always underestimating support for the right, that might be convenient for you to believe, but the historic poll data over the past 35 years doesn't support your theory. n nAs for "every single poll showed that 2/3 of the voters said Bibi was the best person to lead the next government" that is simply not true (though admittedly some did). In case you didn't know it, we don't vote for prime ministers in Israel, we vote for political parties, and in that people's preferences are very different (in 1999, under a different type of election, Ehud Barak was voted prime minister, but his party, Labor dropped to 26 seats from the 34 they won in 1996). n nAnd as for "There is no question that Bibi would have won a working majority if the country had gone to the polls in September", you can't be serious! No question???? n nI've been following elections here in Israel for more than fifty years, and I can assure you that though Bibi might have got himself elected in September, if I were you I wouldn't have bet my life on it.
It's interesting how the left-right block divide (roughly calculated) remains consistent–but is the nationalist camp shrinking? Outside of factional representation in Likud who speaks for the "settler" movement? Who do they vote for? Back in the day Mafdal under Burg senior was this great moderate block and then it was the lion of judah in the days of the gush and then, what, it self-dissolved and evaporated? Ghosts from the past: Geulah Cohen's Techiya et al. What happened to these folks?
What this agreement shows is that quite unlike the Europeans, when faced with an existential threat, Israelis are capable of putting aside ideological differences and presenting a united front in order to confront that threat. How inconvenient for both the EU and the Obama administration.
"This ought to make clear to even the dimmest of American observers of the Middle East … how little the left counts in Israeli politics anymore." n nThis is a true statement. Perhaps the international left would do well to stop criticizing Israel at every opportunity (justified or unjustified) and maybe they could get some influence back. I was there during the housing protests in Tel Aviv, which the left tried to turn into a political movement, but it fizzled the minute it was no longer focused on the the practical matter of housing prices for the middle class. n nIsraelis are generally pretty level headed and know how to make god judgments. I am glad that they have some stable leadership now. n
At least the time frames under discussion have moved to a year-and-a-half from October. But really even this is a stand-in for a fundamental uncertainty that is extraordinarily unlikely to precipitate out in an attack in the coming year but might–or, conceivably could stretch out into a de facto policy of non-intervention. Mofaz himself is not enthusiastic about foregrounding Iran rhetorically and media reports have put him in the camp of Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon, interpreting the strategic threat of Iran as extending beyond Israel and demanding, precisely because of its importance, a response more certain than a one-off unilateral Israeli pre-emption.